Author: Andrew Belasco

For all of the first-class treatment applicants give to their Common App essay, the activities list is all too often relegated to steerage. If antiquated steamship analogies do little for you, a more apropos comparison might present the essay as the mean, attention-hogging prom queen…

Rarely does a week pass without another well-known college or university making headlines by announcing that it will no longer require applicants to submit standardized test scores. This movement, known as going “test-optional,” actually began almost 50 years ago at Bowdoin College and has rapidly…

Unlike other high-prestige professions, many notable figures in the CS universe did not get where they are because of their college but rather through their own genius. Luminaries such as Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, and Steve Jobs all dropped out of college before…

In the wake of the instantly infamous Varsity Blues scandal, our admissions consulting firm, College Transitions, has received a flood of interview requests from media outlets along with countless queries from the general public. This torrent of interest is to be expected following revelations of such…

For many college-bound seniors, the prospect of leaving home for the first time is a source of both excitement and unrest. Flying the nest can induce more of the latter emotion for those who’ve grown up enjoying a tight-knit family and community with shared values,…

The answer to what students should strive for in most areas impacting college admissions is a straightforward, “More/higher is better.” Whether you’re talking about GPA or standardized tests scores, the goal is always going to be to max out your potential. Yet the problem of…

What is today referred to as Parkinson’s Law began as nothing more than a satirical line penned in the pages of a 1955 issue of The Economist, intended to poke fun at bureaucracies: “Work expands to fill the time available for its application.” In essence,…

Even the brightest and most worldly college-bound American teens are not usually able to name more than a handful of universities in the United Kingdom. Sure, there’s Oxford, Cambridge, the London School of Economics and…well, the list dies off after that. Yet, there are close…